In the hallway, as I head back to class, I run into Johntae and Tyler shaking it up like they’re longtime friends or something. The hallways are normally tight and crowded as shit, the stench itching my nostrils, but right now they’re empty. And out of all the possible combinations in all of Sojo Truth High, my brother and Johntae are the only two standing in front of the science lab, slapping hands and smiling at each other. What could Tyler possibly be doing with somebody like Johntae?
I clear my throat loud enough to interrupt this fuckery going on.
And shit gets hella awkward.
Tyler looks at me. He stands there in his Sojo Truth High sports hoodie and jeans. He nods with a forced smile. The way he looks at me tells me he’s hiding something. The look on his face shows he’s becoming someone else. And for a split second, I’m thinking, Maybe this is how Cain looked at Abel?
“What up, bro?” he says.
“Nothing, nothing much, just… uh… coolin’.”
He chuckles before walking down the hallway to his next class, his backpack, unzipped, dangling on his left shoulder. “Catch you later, then, bro! Oh, and remind Ma that I’ll be home a little late—I’m hanging with some dudes.” He gives me that warm brotherly smile.
“All right.” I wave at him until he’s completely out of sight.
And it hits me that I am all damn alone in the hallway with Johntae. Even if he and my bro are suddenly tight or whatever, he could still give me shit.
He blinks real long and hard. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Marvin the tree monkey,” he grunts. A whack-ass line to scare me, but it works. There’s a lump in my throat, and my mind runs through all the possibilities of what’s about to go down. Around other people, Johntae does only minor things to me, like shove me into my locker and knock my books out of my hands, Karate Kid–style—but now we aren’t around other people. I blink, flinching hard, my heart racing.
Johntae’s a legit thug who dresses like the stereotype of one. Black do-rag. Bandana. Black T-shirt so long that it passes his knees. Baggy jeans. White kicks, untied and polished.
He steps closer until we’re only inches away from each other. “I swear you and your geeky friends are some little Creme Pies, always acting all gooey and white,” he bellows, holding his pants up with one hand, the other pointing in my face.
“Well… maybe you need to reconsider your definition of what it means to be black.” I struggle to speak, the words feeling almost physically painful as they fall from my tongue. “Being black doesn’t just mean repping the hood, right?”
Johntae laughs an unexpected laugh. It’s a booming one, like an overly amused hyena, with a little hood in it—like you can hear his hard life in between the has. He gets even closer, until I can actually feel him breathing on my face. “Blood, you don’t know nothing about the hood. You don’t get that experience until you’re shot and stabbed in the back from being out there on the streets selling dope to get by, you hear?”
I gulp, swallowing down a knot, and nod like his words are death sentences.
And then he steps away and scans me up and down, his eyes stopping for a bit too long at my chain. It was my dad’s chain, and it’s one of the only pieces of him I still have. Shit. I feel the world narrowing and closing in.
“Hot daaaamn,” he says lowly, his fist pressed to his mouth. He pauses for a short moment, looking into my eyes, and then continues. “Oh yeah, you gonna have to give me that.”
“What?”
“You heard me, lil nigga. Give me your chain.”
“It’s worthless,” I lie to him.
He cocks his head up and bites his lip. “I don’t give a shit.” He launches his body at me and slams me against the wall of metal lockers, cold against cold. My head hits hard enough for a concussion, and my vision blurs for a moment. He grips my collar tightly in his hands, his fingernails cutting into my neck. As I wheeze and gasp, my head feeling like it’ll explode, he says with a sneer, “I’m not gonna repeat myself.”
I nod, my eyes slowly closing from the pressure.
Then I’m released. My skull doesn’t feel like it’s slowly breaking into tiny pieces anymore. And I have a grip on my vision again.
Slowly but surely, I pull the chain up from around my neck and drop it into his open palm.
“Why me?”
“You ain’t like me,” he says. “That’s why.”
“What?”
“You different,” Johntae says before waddling down the hallway toward C-Quad, his pants nearly tripping him at his ashy ankles. And he chucks me the bird, muttering, “Pussy-ass bitch.”
Man, ain’t this some fucked-up shit.
Just when I get ready to head home, I look both ways and see Tyler in the distance.
He’s standing around with Johntae and his crew, pants sagging lower than usual, wearing his gray sports hoodie and a snapback. I don’t understand how, even when it’s been so long since he’s played sports, Tyler still manages to wear that hoodie.
Tyler looks at something in his hand as Johntae talks to him, poking him in the chest. It’s like he’s in trouble, big trouble for some shit. And my heart is beating so hard.
Tyler pulls out a folded baggie and slips it into his other palm, closing it tightly, and then he eases it over to Johntae. It’s all shady as hell.
Johntae smiles, nodding in appreciation.
Tyler nods back, but in fear. My heart thuds in triplets now.
And then I catch Johntae slip Tyler a wad of cash.
God, please, no.
I stand there, just watching Tyler talk and laugh with Johntae. But instead of waiting for my nuts to drop and rescuing Tyler, I end up walking home, taking a shortcut through a series of backyards, climbing fences, and cutting through gated communities.